


Tony's Kid

by JjdoggieS



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Baby Peter, Baby Peter Parker, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Functioning Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Iron Dad, Kid Peter, Kid Peter Parker, Mother-Son Relationship, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Pepper Adopts Peter, Pepper Adopts peter parker, Pepper Potts Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Pepper Potts Adopts Peter, Pepper Potts Adopts Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Semi-Canon Compliant, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Adopts Peter, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark adopts Peter Parker, Tony adopts Peter, spider son
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 19:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 17,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15153680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JjdoggieS/pseuds/JjdoggieS
Summary: When an unkown kid is left of Tony's doorstep, of course he'd be apprehensive about taking the child. but after spending sometime with the child, and running a DNA test on him, Tony learns that the random child is one of his old colleagues kid, Richard Parker. When he tries to figure out why Peter was left with him and how to get him back with his parents, Tony learns the truth.A.K.A. Peter gets left on Tony's doorstep (literally), Tony learns he knew Peter's father who is now dead, along with Peter's remaining family. Tony decides to adopt Peter, then everything goes to shit.(Cross-posted on my Fanfiction.net account)





	1. The Kid

If Tony was being honest, he wasn’t listening to a word Pepper was saying to him. Not that she was completely expecting him to, mostly, she was just telling J.A.R.V.I.S. so Tony would have someone be there to remind him when she left in two days. Tony could tell Pepper was about to tear into him when J.A.R.V.I.S. started to tell them something, “Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts, a man has just left something outside, near the front door.” J.A.R.V.I.S. informed them.

Pepper seemed confused, looking at Tony to see what he was thinking. But Tony didn’t seemed interested in this new development, rather annoyed by it interrupting whatever thing he was about to try and weasel his way out of going. “What is it J?” Tony asked. If he was being honest, he’d rather just be in his lab not listening to Pepper listen the billions of things he was expected to do this week or whatever this new problem would entail for him.

What J.A.R.V.I.S. answered really surprised Pepper. “Sir, it appears to be a baby. it appears to be about 3 weeks old judging by its size.” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. Tony looked like he was going to just go back up to his room, but Pepper had another, more wholesome, caring idea about what to do about the apparent child left on Tony’s doorstep, literally.

Before Tony knew what was going on, he was being dragged into the elevator and heading towards the lobby and front door of Stark Tower, when a little bundle holding the three week old child. “Pep, do something with it.” Tony said, taking one look at the child before walking away, heading back upstairs to his lab. He was slightly shocked, yet pleased when he got about halfway through the lobby of Stark Tower before getting any indication of displeasure from Pepper.

Pepper’s sharp tone stopped Tony in his lazy steps back to the elevator. “Anthony Edward Stark, get over her right now.” Pepper demanded. Tony quickly returned to Pepper, doing his best to keep his nonchalant act up, hiding his reasonable freight at her God-given authoritativeness over just about anyone and everything around her when she wants.

‘She could probably take over the world if she wanted to. That’s not a terrifying thought Tony. god get together, she’s talking to yo right now, focus.’ Tony thought, just as Pepper was snapping fingers on one of her hands in front of his face, while her other was holding the baby’s carrier, said baby was sound asleep. “Tony, there must be a reason he, she, it, we should really figure its gender, was left on your doorstep of all places.” Pepper said.

Tony was clearly missing the point. “So? What am I, the playboy, genius, billionaire, philanthropist, supposed to do about it?” Tony asked, the half-built robot that was currently taking up a majority of his workbench in his lab, that he was dying to get back to, and the only thing standing in his way was Pepper, and apparently some kid nobody had wanted. Heh, there was something he could relate to the kid. 

Pepper’s fingers were snapping in his face again, just before the baby’s carrier was placed in his hands. “You know I don’t like being handed things Pep.” Tony snarked. trying to give the baby back to Pepper in attempts to give her another one of his responsibilities. Pepper leaned over to him and whispered, “Then it’s a good thing I’m not handing it to you, I’m leaving it with you.” After depositing the child with Tony, Pepper started walking towards the same elevators Tony had tried to escape into earlier, into the depths of his lab and away from the still sleeping child, which was becoming mildly concerning. 

Just as Pepper was reaching the elevator she started talking to J.A.R.V.I.S. “J.A.R.V.I.S., run a search on who left the child at the door. Maybe we can figure out what its name is.” It only took a few seconds, from the time Pepper pressed the button for the elevator to before the doors of the elevator opened that J.A.R.V.I.S. had the results for Pepper. “Ms. Potts, I have the information you’ve requested. The man the left the child is a man called Benjamin Parker, he is currently married to May Parker, and is the older brother of Richard Parker.” J.A.R.V.I.S. said as Pepper entered the elevator, leaving Tony with the baby.

Tony looked at the sleeping baby’s face, while trying to figure out why the third name sounded so familiar. “J.A.R.V.I.S. find more information on Richard Parker.” Tony requested, carrying the baby with him into the elevator. Tony pushed the button that led to his private labs.

When the doors to Tony’s lab opened, Tony walked to one of the few empty chairs in his lab that was near the wall and placed the carrier on it, just as the baby started to blink awake but didn’t start crying, much to Tony’s gratitude. Tony walked over to his work bench, just about to begin tinkering on his robot. “Sir, I have gathered some information on Richard Parker,” J.A.R.V.I.S. started, Tony noticed the baby looking up at the ceiling, trying to find where the voice was coming from. “Richard Parker currently works at Oscorp with his wife Mary Parker, Richard is the younger brother of Benjamin. It is also showing that Richard and Mary had a son less than a month ago named Peter.” J.A.R.V.I.S. finished.

Could that? Can this kid? Tony walked back over to the baby and looked closer at his face. “You’re Richard’s boy aren’t you?” Tony asked, picking up the baby. rather than working in his robot like he’d initially planned, he rather took some spit that came from the little baby’s mouth and ran a quick DNA test on it, and sure enough, it was Richard and Mary’s kid Peter.


	2. I Want To Adopt Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony decides he wants to adopt Peter, having Pepper begin getting the paperwork and appointments set-up while he starts to prepare Stark Tower and his Malibu mansion for the baby.

2 hours later, when Pepper came to check on Tony, and more specifically on the poor infant she’d left in his care while she had to fix many of Tony’s problems, deal some annoying buyers, all while tracking down Benjamin Parker, trying to return the infant to the man. She instead discovered Tony sitting in a chair near the wall, holding the sleeping infant. Only then did she notice that the lab wasn’t playing loud AC/DC like normal, instead it was playing quiet nursery music. “Tony.” Pepper called, snapping the engineer’s attention from the baby on his shoulder to his assistant. A small, tired smile formed on his face from watching the small child.

Pepper walked closer to the man, who was oddly relaxed for someone who was utterly uncomfortable being in the same room as the child until she left him alone with it. Maybe that was one of her worse decisions she’d made in the last week or so but it seemed to have forcibly bonded the two together, now to ruin Tony’s day. “Tony I have some bad news.” Pepper started, hoping for once to get the mans attention for the really important news.

Tony’s tired smile slowly faded from his face and a scowl replaced it soon after. “Pep? What is it? Is it about Peter?” Tony asked quickly. Tony stood from his chair and place the sleeping child into the carrier.

Pepper was confused how Tony had learned that the child’s name was Peter. “How did you? Never mind. I have some unfortunate news about Peter. His parents, Mary and Richard, along with his Aunt May, were in a plan that crashed approximately three hours ago.” Pepper explained. Tony looked heartbroken, glancing back at the little 3 week old baby, who'd just became an orphan 3 hours ago. “And, there’s another thing, Benjamin Parker, the man who dropped Peter off, was fatally hit by a car shortly after leaving him. Tony, I’ve checked his records, Peter doesn’t have anyone else to go to. He has no living relatives Tony.” Pepper finished.

Tony picked Peter up again, the young boy slowly waking up again after his at least second nap of the day. “We’re keeping him.” Tony declared.

Pepper’s shock was to be expected. “Tony, are you sure? This isn’t like getting a fish, and it really isn’t a fast process either. It’s a lot of responsibilities, less sleep, less time, and absolutely no drinking.” Pepper tried, trying to get the idea of repercussions affecting Tony for once of his actions.

Tony carried Peter closer to Pepper, trying to get her to look at the little baby. “Pepper, I get this will make things a lot different around here, and there’s the matter of getting him back out to Malibu once I get back from Afghanistan in a week, then we can be a happy little family.” Tony declared.

Pepper took a sigh and carefully pulled the baby from Tony’s arms. “Alright, if you plan on keeping him, you’ll need to baby-proof everything and you’ll need to buy furniture, clothes, diapers, food, everything that this kid will need. Now, while you start doing that, I’m going to go start getting the adoption papers and everything set up.” Pepper said, carrying Peter into the elevator, after grabbing the carrier and heading up to her office.

Tony simply shook his head and began planning the changes to be made to one of the extra bedrooms in his Malibu house to be Peter’s room, more specifically the one closest to the master bedroom. He also ordered red and blue furniture for Peter’s nursery and just about ordered every color, style and size from newborn to 6 months. Then he moved onto ordering food and diapers to Stark Tower for about 3 weeks even though they should be moving within 2 weeks.

When Tony finished, he had the shipments for Stark Tower inbound to arrive in less than an hour, Pepper had also notified him that a CSS agent and two of his lawyers were on their way right now to start the adoption, but wouldn’t be there for about two hours. But just as he reached the main office floor, with his and Pepper’s offices, he could hear Peter starting to cry. Tony quickly left the elevator once in reached the floor and tried not to run over to where Peter was, he didn’t do as well as he’d’ve liked to. “What’s wrong?” Tony asked.

Pepper laughed as she picked Peter up out of his carrier, tiredly blinking his eyes. “Nice to see you too Tony.” Pepper scoffed, “He just woke up, I’m wondering if he’s hungry or if he needs to be changed.” Pepper tried to feel around Peter’s diaper, it felt light and dry. “I think he’s just hungry Tony.” Pepper handed Peter off to a very eager Tony.

Tony pulled Peter onto his shoulder and his crying softened, slowly stopping entirely. The infant looked up at Tony and gave a bubbly giggle after a moment of silence. The silence didn’t last long before Peter started crying again, trying to convey something with his, well, no vocabulary. “I’ll go take him down to the kitchen to try and find something for him. The formula should be here soon.” Tony said, walking toward the elevator.


	3. Stephanie Malick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's Lawyers arrive, along with an agent from CSS, Stephanie Malick. Tony realizes he's a bit overprotective over the kid, maybe there's a reason for him to be. Or he's just over-reacting.

Once Tony had reached the kitchen, J.A.R.V.I.S., Dum-E, and U had unpacked his starter 3 week kit of baby food and formula, bottles, pacifiers, burping cloths, baby monitors, clothes diapers, baby powder, and some wipes, along with a diaper bag, with a changing mat, and a pack-and-play crib. The rest of the furniture was being shipped straight to the Malibu house. Tony picked up the bottle, testing it on his wrist, as instructed by J.A.R.V.I.S., before trying to give the bottle to Peter. “Sir, I am sorry to intrude, but young Peter is not likely to have the capability to hold a bottle on his own until he is closer to 6 months old.” J.A.R.V.I.S. informed.

Tony rolled his eyes and readjusted his grip on the bottle, grabbing a burping cloth and putting Peter tried to grip his little hands around the bottle as he tried to suck down the contents of the bottle. “J.A.R.V.I.S., how much time do we have before the lawyers get here?” Tony asked. As J.A.R.V.I.S. started calculating the answer to Tony’s question.

Peter had drank about a half of the bottle and had also spit up on himself a bit and on the rag on Tony’s shoulder. “You have approximately 7 and a half minutes before your lawyers arrive and 8 minutes and 42 seconds before the agent from Children’s Social Services arrives.” J.A.R.V.I.S. answered after two short minutes. Peter had decided he was done with the bottle and was now futility trying to push the bottle away. 

Tony took the bottle and was about to leave it in the fridge when J.A.R.V.I.S. told him to label the date and time on it, so when he ends up using all of the bottles he knows which are the freshest or some bullshit. He honestly didn’t care, he had an infant to go change and try to act like he wasn’t faking his way through everything long enough to actually adopt the kid he’d grown oddly fond of in a matter of hours.

Once Tony had gathered the diaper bag, filled with what J.A.R.V.I.S. had told him to, and three extra changes of clothes before heading into an empty bedroom to change the baby. Tony pulled the changing pad out of the diaper bag and placed it on the bed, then putting Peter on the mat. By now Peter had started to cry, uncomfortable from being in wet clothes and on an uncomfortable plastic mat. “Pete, I’m going to change you right now.” Tony said, trying to sooth the crying child. 

While Tony was changing Peter’s clothes he figured he should just change his diaper too. And after following directions from J.A.R.V.I.S., he didn’t have any experience with kids before, at least when he had to take care of them, so three diapers and five minutes later Peter was changed and Tony was heading back upstairs to Pepper for the adoption thing, whatever its called. Meeting?

When Tony reached Pepper she looked like she’d just finished something on her computer and was thoroughly annoyed, but once she saw Tony and Peter she seemed to relax immensely. “There’s my boys.” Pepper said, she checked the time on her computer before looking back at the two boys. “And you’ve made it just in time.” Pepper pulled Peter from Tony.

Just as Tony was going to protest the elevator doors opened, revealing his two lawyers and another lady, probably from child services, exited the elevator. Pepper quickly walked over to greet them, dragging Tony with her, both of them quickly greeted the lawyers before turning to the CSS agent “Hello, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Pepper Potts.” Pepper gestured to Tony, then to Peter, “This is, as I’m sure you know, is Tony Stark, and Peter Parker.” Pepper introduced, Tony just waved when he was introduced.

The CSS agent introduced herself as Stephanie Malick. “I will try to make this as quick as possible, as I am sure all of us have things we have to do. So if you both don’t mind we can begin some of the questioning.” Ms. Malick said.

“What do you mean, questioning?” Tony asked.

Ms. Malick laughed, “Don’t worry Mr. Stark, they’re just some standard questions to ensure that this situation will be a good fit for Peter.” Ms. Malick assured.

Pepper started leading everyone back to the conference room when Tony asked, “And, what’ll happen if you think it won’t be a good fit for him here?” Causing the group to momentarily stop when Tony did.

Ms. Malick had an annoyingly fake smile on her face when she looked back at Tony. “Well Mr. Stark, if it seems that this would be an unfit living situation for Peter, CSS would take him and try to find another family to place him with.” Ms. Malick said, “But we’re all hoping for that to not be the case today.” Ms. Malick said before moving beside Pepper, the same side that Peter was laying on. While on their way to the conference room, Tony noticed how Ms. Malick kept looking at Peter on the way while she was talking to Pepper. Tony was probably being too protective over the kid.


	4. The Adoption

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Pepper answer some questions for Stephanie and Pepper finshes final paperwork. Tony and Pepper's adoption of Peter is finalized. Just in time before Tony has to leave for Afganistan in a weeks time.

Once everyone was seated, Ms. Malick pulled out some papers from a briefcase that Tony only now noticed, he needed to get better at noticing things like that if he wanted to be able to protect Peter. “Alright Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts, firstly will both of you be adopting Peter or will it just be Mr. Stark?” Ms. Malick asked, writing some things onto a notepad and legal documents.

Tony glanced at Pepper who took the question, “Tony will be Peter’s parent, and I will just be a legal guardian for Peter when available.” Pepper answered.

Ms. Malick scribbled a bit onto the notepad. “Alright, Mr. Stark, how would you describe your family was growing up?” Ms. Malick asked.

Tony tensed at the question, remembering his father’s cold distant ‘parenting’, if it could be called that. He remembered his caring and loving mother, being an actual parent to him when she could. He briefly though about his nanny, whom was one of the best people in his life, especially from his childhood. “Um, my family was definitely not ordinary, my father worked a lot, building Stark Industries. My mother was the most wonderful women, she was so caring and sweet. I had some nannies and a few butlers that helped raise me while my parents were busy. That’s about it. Next?” Tony said, trying to change the topic.

Ms. Malick had a small smile as she wrote his answer before asking the next question. “This can be for both of you, Ms. Potts and Mr. Stark, how do you feel about disciplining children? Ms. Potts, would you like to go first?” Ms. Malick asked.

Pepper kept her composure, brushing some hair out of her face that really wasn’t there. “I feel that discipline is an important part of raising a child. Children need a decent amount of discipline in their earlier childhood adolescence, if they’re overly, or underly, disciplined they more often than not become rebellious, non-functioning members of society.” Pepper said.

Ms. Malick nodded along with Pepper’s answer, writing a few things down but not as much as she did when Tony had previously answered. But then again, this question wasn’t as ‘deep’ as the last one. When both of the women looked at Tony, he realized he supposed to be answering the question. “Discipline is important to the development of the child. If a child lacks discipline they’ll lack self-control, they’ll have no respect for authoritative figures, and they’ll grow to lack empathy and patience.” Tony said.

After several more questions, Ms. Malick writing several things down throughout the questioning, and Ms. Malick said there were only a few more questions left that had to do with financial situations and statements. Peter started sniffling, Tony and Pepper both knew he was about to start crying. Tony noticed that Pepper was getting up with Peter, just as he started crying. “Pep, I’ll take him, you can finish this up and just have J.A.R.V.I.S. let me know when I need to come back.” Tony said, standing up from his chair, carefully pulled Peter out of Pepper’s arms and walked out of the conference room as he could hear Pepper, Ms. Malick, and the lawyers talking about the financial shit he really didn’t care about.

Tony quickly turned his attention to the little boy crying in his arms. “Hey J, what do you think is the matter him? Is he hungry again? Or like does he need to be changed or something?” Tony asked, carefully lifted the baby up and tried to sniff around his diaper, which was surprisingly dry and light. Obviously it’s not that.

“Sir, I do believe that young Peter may be tired.” J.A.R.V.I.S. said.

Tired? “What do you mean? He’s already had at least two naps today.” Tony asked, walking back to his office when he’d had the pack-and-play set up. 

As Tony put Peter into the make-shift bed and got a pacifier into his mouth as he drifted off to sleep, J.A.R.V.I.S. chirped back, “Sir, it is believed that most 3 week old infants take about 4-5 naps a day for a total of 6-7 hours, they also are expected to sleep for about 8.5-10 hours at night, for an expected 15.5-17 hours a day.”

While Tony was waiting to be called back into the meeting room, Tony had J.A.R.V.I.S. quietly played AC/DC over the speakers, just loud enough for Tony to hear but quiet enough that it shouldn’t wake up Peter. After waiting with Peter for about twenty or so minutes before J.A.R.V.I.S. was telling him that Pepper was requesting him and Peter to come back to the meeting room. Tony quickly grabbed Peter’s carrier and put it on a chair near the pack-and-play, picked up Peter while he was still sleeping, and put him into the carrier and started walking back to meeting room.

When Tony pushed open the doors to meeting room, Pepper and Ms. Malick were signing some papers. Tony placed Peter’s carrier on the table near where he was sitting next to Pepper before. Tony switched spots with Pepper, Tony moved over to where Ms. Malick was with the paperwork and Pepper moved over to watch Peter while he was still sleeping.

After Tony signed what he was told to by Ms. Malick. His lawyers had left at this point. Tony still didn’t know what was going on, if he was going to be able to adopt Peter or if he was going to be put in some foster home. And as this list of possibilities of things that could go wrong with his situation, Ms. Malick’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, “Congratulations Mr. Stark, Peter Benjamin Parker is now an official Stark.” She’d said through another one of her forced smiles.

Shortly after Stephanie left, leaving just Pepper, Tony, and Peter in the meeting room. Being their weird little family.


	5. The Jericho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One week after Tony adopted Peter, he has to leave on a buisnees trip to show-off SI's newest weapon, The Jericho. After the display is finshed, everything goes wrong. His trip is unexpectedly extended by a few months.

Tony could easily say that the week after he had adopted Peter was one of the best weeks of his life. Peter was a month old now. Now he had to go spend a week in Afghanistan showing of his newest weapon ‘The Jericho’, at least he was going with Rhodey. “Don’t worry Mr. Stark, Peter is with Pepper this week. He’ll be fine.” Happy said, reassuring the new father. Tony thanked Happy before moving onto the plane.

When Tony got onto the plane he saw that Rhodey was waiting for him, which made him feel bad considering he was almost 3 hours late for the plane. He was a bit late because Peter had a rough night and then he forgot it was Pepper’s birthday but she said she’d take care of it during one of Peter’s naps later. After Happy had put his bags in the plane and had gotten back into the car, waiting for the plane to leave before he left. 

Tony and Rhodey sat across from each other on the plane, Rhodey had a newspaper while Tony had nothing. “Whatcha reading Platypus?” Tony asked, eyeing Rhodey’s paper.

“Nothing.” Rhodey replied shortly.

“Oh come on, Sour Patch. I said I was sorry.” Tony said. One of the flight attendances came by with hot towels, that soon lead to warmed sake, what he was on vacation, kind of, and despite Rhodey’s adamancy that they were ‘working’, eventually led to both of them being very intoxicated by the time they arrived in Afghanistan.

As soon as Tony had gotten off the plane he was greeted by multiple members of the military. Soon after he was being moved to present Stark Industries’ newest weapon, The Jericho. Stark may be a bit of a egotist and loved when everyone was watching him but this was something he wanted to get done as soon as possible and get back to his son. 

“Is it better to be feared, or respected? And I say, is it too much to ask for both? With that in mind I humbly present the crown jewel, of Stark Industries Freedom line. It is the first missile system to incorporate our proprietary repulser technology. They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That’s how Dad did it. That’s how America does it. And it’s worked out pretty well so far. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee you bad guys won’t even want to come out of their caves.” Tony said, waving his arm to one of the people near the Jericho. The Jericho fired off, splitting into multiple other missiles, “For your consideration, The Jericho.” The Jericho’s smaller missiles donate upon impact with the ground, creating a big gust of wind that ended up blowing Tony forward a few steps.

Tony walks over to a crate that opens to reveal some chilled whiskey along with multiple glasses saying that one came with every order. As the various members of the military celebrated the deal, Tony got a phone call from Obadiah Stane, or as Tony called him Obie. The long and short of it was that Obie wanted to know how the deal went.

Once everyone had celebrated and were heading back to the base, Tony got into one of the convoy vehicles, sending Rhodey into another. After sipping on his whiskey, he answered a few questions for the soldiers, as he was about to take a picture with one of the soldiers, Jimmy, the vehicle in front of them was attacked. The three soldiers quickly got out of the vehicle, leaving Tony alone. 

As the soldiers attacked the unknown threat, he was continuously told to stay in the vehicle, instead of listening he got out of the vehicle and was about to contact someone on his phone when one of his bombs landed to his right. While he tried to quickly get away from the bomb before it exploded, but he was too slow. The bomb exploded, multiple shrapnels from the bomb became embedded in his chest, as his chest bled from the multiple wounds he lost consciousness, his lingering thoughts would be how this was not how he thought this trip would go and how long it would actually be before he saw Peter again, if he’d ever see him again.


	6. Brock Rumlow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper learns about what happened to Tony from Rhodey. Pepper finds someone to help her take care of Peter while Tony is gone.

When Pepper had gotten a phone call from Rhodey and not Tony after the deal was finished. Especially when it was at 6:30 in the morning. “Rhodey, how are you? And what did Tony do now?” Pepper asked. She was already up with Peter, she’d been getting up around 6 with him anyway. She looked over to him, sucking on his post-breakfast pacifier and flailing his arms having his own little conversation.

“Pepper, I have some bad news.” Rhodey said, Pepper stiffened and walked to be in front of peter as he looked up curiously at Pepper when her smile had faded from her face as she’d answered the phone call.

Pepper tried not to sound nervous as she talked to Rhodey. “What is it?” Pepper asked.

The two words that followed were some of the worst Pepper had heard in a long time. “Tony’s missing.” Those word kept echoing in Pepper’s head. Tony’s missing. How did this happen? “We’re doing everything we can to find him. I’m leading the rescue mission, we’re going to find him. Pepper I promise, we’re going to find him.” Rhodey promised.

Pepper smiled at Peter when he started giggling at something. “I trust you Rhodey. Just bring him home soon please.” Pepper said.

“I will. I promise. I’m sorry, I’ve gotta go Pep.” Rhodey said. Soon after the call clicked off, leaving Pepper with Peter in deafening silence of what she was just told. Peter’s babbling pulled her back to reality, the one in which she now has to solely ‘parent’ a 1 month old infant.

Pepper put her phone on the table, picked up Peter from his new car seat that Tony had picked out when he’d realized how ugly the old, white, scuffed, plastic carrier Peter had arrived in really was. His new carrier was black with red and blue accents. Tony’d like the colors and it was rated as the safest carrier that had been released in the past 10 years. “Hi Petey. What are you doing buddy?” Pepper asked, picking up the giggly infant.

Peter pushed the pacifier out of his mouth, resulting in it falling off to the side of his pajama shirt, still connecting to clip connected to his shirt. “Beba! Ba Beba!” Peter cheered. Hands grabbing a piece of Pepper’s hair.

Pepper smiled down at the baby. “Hi Peter. It seems like daddy might be gone for a bit longer than we thought. So we might have to look into getting you a nanny for a week or two, hopefully.” Pepper said, Peter wouldn’t understand what she’s saying for a couple more months but she wouldn’t let her voice show that anything was wrong.

“Beba e ba.” Peter mumbled.

Pepper laughed while Peter kept trying to communicate while he didn’t know words and didn’t have any teeth to help him speak either. “Yeah, Pepper is going to go make a phone call now. J.A.R.V.I.S., keep an eye on him please.” Pepper called.

“Of course Ms. Potts, it would be my honor to watch young Peter.” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

Pepper moved to the counter where her laptop was and started emailing some people she knew from S.H.E.I.L.D., trying to see who could get a week off to help her. In less than 10 minutes she had a reply from a guy named Brock Rumlow. Apparently he was also a member of the S.T.R.I.K.E. And he said he’d be available for the next month if she needed him. Pepper emailed him back saying that it’d hopefully only be for a week or two but she’d, Tony would, pay him $10 an hour while he was there.

Surprisingly, Brock was there in an hour. Pepper was in the kitchen making a second bottle for Peter of the day. Peter usually finished 5-6 bottles in a day, the only one he wouldn’t finish would be the one when he went to bed. “Cute kid.” Brock said, his voice reminding Pepper of the fact another person was in the Penthouse.

Pepper quickly twisted the top of the bottle on and walked back out to the living room where Peter was laying on his stomach, on the floor trying to scoot towards the adults. Pepper walked over and picked him up, helping him with his bottle as she greeted Brock. “Hello Mr. Rumlow. I’m Pepper Potts and this is Peter. Thank you for coming, I’m sorry it was so last minute.” Pepper apologized.

Brock simply waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. And please, call me Brock, Mr. Rumlow is my father. And this beats having to do paperwork anyway.” Brock explained.

“Speaking of paperwork, I have some to do myself which is a bit difficult with him sometimes. I’ll stay just over here,” Pepper said, gesturing to the kitchen’s counter covered in papers from the previous couple of weeks she was behind on, “if you need anything, let me know. Peter’s just a month old so there’s not much he could do right now to get him into trouble. I just-”

Brock placed one of his hands on Pepper’s shoulder, “Don’t worry Ms. Potts, surprisingly this isn’t the first time I’ve babysat.” Brock said soothingly. Brock carefully pulled Peter from Pepper, along with the bottle, and walked over to the living room. Pepper watched for another moment before returning to her work, making sure J.A.R.V.I.S. would alert her if anything were to happen.


	7. Refusal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony wakes up in a cave, held captive by a terrorist group called The Ten Rings. He learns there is several pieces of shrapnel in his chest, only being kept out of his heart by an electro-magnet. The Ten Rings say they'll let him go, once he builds them The Jericho missile.

When Tony regained consciousness he had a tube taped up and in his nose and he was laying on a make-shift bed. He quickly began pulling the tube out of his nose. As Tony looked around the room he noticed there was another person, an older man, was shaving or grooming his beard in a tiny mirror. As he begins to move toward the other man, a wire pulled him back. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The other man said, looking at Tony in the mirror, or maybe at himself, Tony couldn’t tell, he was more concerned about what the fuck happened to him and what the wires were attached to.

Tony turned to his other side and saw some wires connected to a car battery, as he pulled the wires they tugged on his chest, under the bandaging. He quickly started pulling the bandaging off of his chest, seeing the wires were attached to a magnet of some kind.

After fully waking up, trying to regain his bearings the best he could. “What the hell did you do to me?” Tony asked.

The other man looked at Tony briefly, “What I did?” the man laughed, “What I did was to save your life. I removed all the shrapnel, there’s a lot left. It’s heading into your atrial septum.” The man grabbed a small bottle off a nearby surface as Tony slowly walked towards the man. “Here, want to see? I have a souvenir, take a look.” The man said, tossing the bottle to Tony. 

As Tony looked at the bottle the man spoke again, “I’ve seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the ‘walking dead.’ Because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs.”

Tony wondered about the thing in his chest. “What is this?”

The other man knew what he was referring to. “That, is an electro-magnet, hooked up to car battery. And it’s keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart.” Tony zipped up his jacket once the other man had finished.

After a few moments of some uncomfortable silence, Tony looking at a camera mounted on the wall and the other man worked on something else. After noticing Tony’s gaze on the camera he said, “That’s right, smile. We met once, at a technical conference in Bern.”

“I don’t remember.” Was all Tony muttered.

The other man briefly laughed, returning to his previous project, “No you wouldn’t, if I had been that drunk I wouldn’t have been able to stand. Much less give a lecture on integrated circuits.”

How long ago was that? The conference was ’98 or was it ’99? “Where are we?” Tony asked, taking a quick glance of the room.

Soon after Tony’s question there was shouting and banging on the door in some language Tony didn’t understand. But the other man seemed to understand what was happening, “Stand up. Come on, stand up. Do as I do.” The other man said “Put your arms up.”

Tony raised his arms slightly delayed from the other man’s, as several men walked into the room holding Stark weaponry. “Those are my guns, how did they get my guns?” Tony asked.

His question seemed to upset the other man. “Do you understand me? Do as I do.” The man hissed as the other men approached.

The seeming leader of the men, at least of the group that entered, began speaking in the same unknown language as before. He could only pick up some words like his name Tony Stark. Once the man in front of him stopped talking the man he was listening to began to translate for him, “He says, welcome Tony Stark. The most famous mass murderer in the history of America.”

The man in front of him began to speak again, not understanding anything he said, luckily he had his new translator next to him. “You’re honored. They want you to build the missile. The Jericho missile.” His translator was handed a picture, showing one of the Jericho missiles from the demonstration earlier that day, yesterday, he didn’t know what day it was anymore. “This one.”

All of the men in the room looked to him now as he was supposed to deliberate over his answer, “I refuse.” was all he had to say. He wasn’t going to build one of his most deadly weapons for a bunch of terrorists that had kidnapped him and killed his military envoy.

His defiance in building them the missile led to him being submerged into water repeatedly, until he almost drowned. As he was being submerged repeatedly his mind drifted to Pepper and Peter, who were waiting for him to return. Now he might never return. Peter would be left fatherless for a second time. He couldn’t let that happen to Peter. And he couldn’t make Pepper have to deal with it after all the shit he already makes her deal with.

Once his kidnappers were satisfied with the torture aspect, a bag was placed over his head and he was pulled to another area of the camp. Only when they had reached a very bright area and they were stopped was the straw bag removed from his head. It was at this point Tony realized they were outside the camp or cave, whatever that hell was.

When his eyes adjusted to the massive amount of light, he realized they were in some makeshift market thing in the mountains. As Tony walked around market he noticed that they had an exuberant amount of Stark weapons just stockpiled together. The man from before said something and his translator asked, “He wants to know what you think.”

He wants to know what I think? Fuck him. How’d they get these anyway? Did the steal them from the military after murdering them? “I think you’ve got a lot of my weapons.” Is what he actually said, he didn’t want to be water-boarded again.

His translator answered back for him, the other man beginning to speak again once he’d finished. Talking about some bullshit he really didn’t care about. He just wanted to see his son again. As he thought the man had finished talking and his translator began again, “He says they have everything you need to rebuild the Jericho missile. He wants you to make a list of materials.” 

After his translator finished speaking the asshole from before started talking again. Causing his translator to talk again, “He says for you to start working immediately, and when you’re done, he will set you free.” Yeah right. The asshole raised his hand for a shake, and although Tony did shake it, he had no intention of building the missile.


	8. Where's Tony?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper and Brock start learning Peter's schedule. Pepper gets a phone call from Christine Everhart, inquring about setting up a meeting with Tony after being unable to reach him. And Peter takes a nap.

It took Pepper three hours to get enough work done to elicit giving herself a break to check-in on Brock and Peter, when she’d walked back into the living room Brock and Peter were on the couch and she could faintly hear Brock whispering something to Peter. “How’s it going in here?” Pepper asked, trying to not scare either Peter or Brock by her entrance

Brock shifted slightly to face Pepper more as she took a seat on the portion of the couch next to him. Pepper could see that Peter was soundly sleeping, sucking on one of his pacifiers. Given that it was about 9:30 and he usually napped around this time anyway. “I mean, I think it’s going pretty well considering he’s sleeping and not screaming bloody-murder.” Brock said, dissolving into laughter. 

Brock silently offered the sleeping infant to Pepper and she carefully pulled him over with her. Peter’s face scrunched up for a second before relaxing again. “You can go take a break for a while if you’d like. He’ll probably sleep until about 11. I’ll probably go put him in his crib for a bit.” Pepper explained. She stood up from the couch and walked into the main bedroom Tony and Peter shared, but since Tony is MIA and Pepper is staying in the tower until he returns. Even though she was still moving Peter’s things to the Malibu mansion at the end of the week

After Pepper had put Peter into his crib and returned to the living room with a baby monitor in hand, Brock had figured out how to bring up movies on the tv. The movie was just starting when Pepper had come back, the title showing Along Came A Spider. Pepper watched the move for a bit before her phone began buzzing again so she walked back into the kitchen to take the call. “Hello?” She asked.

“Ms. Potts, I’m glad to have reached you,” Pepper could recognize the voice to be Christine Everhart, “I was wondering if you could tell me where Tony is.”

Pepper scoffed before answering, “May I ask why you are inquiring about Mr. Stark’s location.” 

Christine clearly didn’t like Pepper avoiding the question. “Mr. Stark had promised a meeting after his demonstration in Afghanistan. And I’ve been trying to contact him to set-up a time and date but he hasn’t been returning any of our calls.” Christine claimed.

Pepper rolled her eyes at the woman’s attempt at getting any information from her. “Mr. Stark is currently unavailable for any interviewing right now, but we can discuss this at a later date.” Pepper responded before ending the call. As she did she got several emails about things relating to Stark Industries that would no doubt keep her busy for several more hours.

She felt bad having to leave Peter to Brock while she went back to work, but that’s what he was here for anyway. Pepper walked back into the living room and handed Brock the baby monitor as she explained, “I’m sorry, something came up and I have to go back to working. He should sleep until around 11 but if he wakes up before that give him a bottle and he’ll go back to sleep for another hour.”

Brock took the baby monitor from Pepper as she explained. “Pepper, don’t worry. I’m here to make your life easier. Like you’ve said, he’ll probably sleep for another couple hours. There’s nothing to worry about.” Brock said. With that Pepper went to deal with another set of problems.


	9. Mark I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Yinsen start building their, Tony's, escape plan. They finish the first part. The miniture arc reactor. Then starting on the suit, Mark I.

After returning from agreeing to build the damn missile that got him here in the first place, Tony understandingly internally sulked as his translator kept talking to him. “I’m sure they’re looking for you Stark. They would never find you in this mountains. What you just saw, that is your legacy Stark.” If only he knew. “Your life’s work, in the hands of those murderers, is that how you want to go out? Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark? Or are you going to do something about it?”

“I shouldn’t do anything about it. They’re going to kill me, you,” My kid. “either way. And if they don’t I’ll be dead in a week.” Tony said, his thoughts lingering about never getting to see his son again. Never getting to see him grow up, graduate high school, graduate college, take over SI if that’s what he wanted.

There was an uncomfortable, tense silence for a brief moment before the other man spoke again, “Well then, this is a very important week for you then, isn’t it?”

Sooner than he’d expected, Tony was ordering his captors’s lackeys around, building his workstation. After the completion of his new workstation, Tony and the other guy began deconstructing parts of a SI weapon. Tony had never been one to work in silence, which is why he’d usually listen to music as he worked or talked on the rare occasion someone was around to talk to while he worked. And since music wasn’t an option, Tony decided to try having a conversation with the other guy, “How many languages do you speak?” Tony asked.

the other guy’s answer was quite quick, “A lot. But apparently not enough for this place. They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi, Russian.” the other guy explained.

As Tony pulled a piece out of the weapon they were dismembering, he asked, “Who are these people?”

Again, the other guy knew his answer very quickly. “They are your loyal customers sir. They call themselves the Ten Rings.” the other guy explained. the camera whirled slightly as it was adjusted, but neither of the men payed it any mind.

While Tony worked on what the terrorists believed was the missile, the other guy came up with another valid point. “You know, we might be more productive if you’d include me in the planning process.”

Tony somewhat ignored the other guy’s point, preferring to do it himself. Tony pulled a piece from the weapon and ended up only needing another smaller piece from the fragment pulled from the bigger weapon. When the other guy asked what he’d pulled out was, Tony replied, “That’s palladium, .15 grams. I need at least 1.6, so why don’t you go break down the other eleven.” Tony suggested, more-like ordered but he wouldn’t say that.

As the two worked, being watched by their captors, they completed a stage of their escape plan. While Tony fretted over it being their only shot, the other guy assured him that he had steady hands, how else would Tony be alive, which he was very grateful for. Eventually Tony asked what the other guy’s name was, slightly feeling bad for not knowing it. To which the other guy replied. “Yinsen.”

Tony and Yinsen worked together quite well, considering they never had before, at least to Tony’s recollection. Sometimes they would be talking, others in completely focused silence. The two were working on a power source. Yinsen walked over to Tony as he managed to get it to start working. “That doesn’t look like a Jericho missile.” Yinsen joked.

While Tony stared intently at the small, glowing, power unit before him he explained. “That’s because it’s a miniaturized arc reactor. I got a big one powering my factory at home. It should keep the shrapnel out of my heart.”

Yinsen had another question, “What could it create?” Looking at the glowing power unit as well.

“If my math is right, and it always is, three gigajoules per second.” Tony stated.

Yinsen replied, “That could run your heart for 50 lifetimes.”

“Yeah.” Tony agreed, “Or something big for 15 minutes.”

Once the miniature arc reactor was finished, Tony showed Yinsen the several pages that made up the blueprints to his escape plan, the first Iron Man suit.

Easily, Yinsen was impressed by Tony’s design.


	10. The Zoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world knows Tony is gone. Brock volunteers to take Peter to the zoo for an afternoon. Brock discovers something Peter likes. Brock makes contact with someone.

It had been two weeks since Tony had been kidnapped. Every news outlet had made their statements about what they believed happened. Brock said he’d stay for another week but had to go back to work then. Pepper had soon received a phone call from Obadiah Stane, requesting to meet with her about the media coverage of Tony’s kidnapping. When she’d tried to tell him she had business to attend to in the tower and couldn’t leave at the moment unless it was an emergency Obadiah had suggested he come over there around noon tomorrow. 

Pepper wasn’t too excited about Obadiah coming over while Tony was trying to keep Peter a secret from the rest of the world. Although she’d already told Brock about him, but she was in need of some help taking care of him while she was trying get some work done. Now, Pepper had to tell Brock when he got in at 7 about Obadiah’s visit.

Brock and Pepper had agreed on him getting there around 7 in the mornings and he could leave about 9 since Peter slept during most of the time in between. Although Peter usually woke up around 6, they had agreed on 7 so Pepper could have an hour alone with Peter every morning while Tony was gone.

Peter seemed to live on an internal seclude. He’d sleep around the same time everyday. He’d want food around the same time everyday. And he’d need a diaper change around the same time everyday. He was oddly consistent which may help Tony in the long run, help him adjust to a normal sleeping schedule for once.

As her thoughts were about Tony’s life may be affected by Peter if he returned, the elevator dinged open as Brock entered the living room, which had become their workspace during the mornings. Peter seemed to be slightly cranky in the mornings but once it was around 9 and was having his second nap of the day he was the happy, giggly baby he normally was.

Brock walked over to the couch where Pepper and Peter were. Pepper was lightly rocking Peter as he slowly perked up after finishing his breakfast. “Hey Pep.” Brock said, falling onto the couch.

Pepper looked over to Brock as Peter blinked up at her, “Hi Brock. How are you this morning?” she asked, starting to bounce Peter in hopes to help wake him up some more.

While the two adults greeted each other, Peter grabbed at a piece of Pepper’s hair and tried to pull it. Pepper and Brock looked at the little boy, who was grinning up at both of them. “I guess someone’s ready to start playing today.” Pepper said, standing up from the couch and walked over to the play mat that was near some of the windows along the edge of the living room.

“You know Pepper,” Brock called from the couch, “I was thinking maybe I could take Peter and we could go to the park or the zoo today. Get some fresh air.” Pepper contemplated the idea for a moment before agreeing that it would be a good idea for Peter to get out for a day. 

She’d known Brock for two weeks, well enough to trust him with Peter, out for an afternoon. “I think if you guys went around 10 and were back by 2 at the latest, Peter will just sleep till 5.” Pepper suggested. 

“Sounds like a plan, thanks Pepper.” Brock replied.

Pepper walked back towards the kitchen, “I’ll pack you guys a few things and I can go get the stroller from the garage.” Pepper said, pulling a few empty bottles from the cupboards.

Two hours later, everything was packed and the stroller was brought up. Brock had spoke with J.A.R.V.I.S. and had decide on going to the Central Perk Zoo that was a short walk away from the tower.

When Brock and Peter had gotten to the zoo, it wasn’t very busy by a New York standard. Peter was giggling and clapping his hands together as they walked past the animals. Brock would tell Peter what the animal was called, Peter would try to say it and was quite unsuccessful.

First it was the lions. “These are the lions Peter.”

Followed by Peter’s response, “Ions.”

Then it was the tigers. “Peter, those are tigers.”

“Ige!”

Bears were, “Beas.”

Turtles were, “Toots.”

And penguins were, “Pegoos.”

But when Brock was showing Peter the different animals in the air-conditioned insect exhibit, Peter wasn’t trying to say anything back. He thought maybe he’d fallen asleep but when he looked down at him he saw he was looking intently at something towards the exit of the room.

As Brock walked closer to what Peter was looking, he realized he was looking at a bunch of spiders that had brown fur. Brock tried to find what kind of spider they were but the plaque was broken so the name was missing.

When Brock pushed Peter out of the insect exhibit. Peter let out a big yawn and started making grabby hands at Brock. Brock walked them over to a nearby, empty bench and pulled Peter out of the stroller. Brock tried to give him a pacifier but Peter just batted it away. He tried one of the bottles next and watched Peter try to grasp the bottle but his hands were still too small.

After Peter finished two of the three bottles that were packed, he accepted the pacifier the second time it was offered and dozed off to sleep shortly after. When Brock looked at his watch once he realized Peter was asleep, he saw that it was just 15 after noon. He pulled out his phone as he walked back toward the entrance of the zoo, heading towards central park.

B: Hey, you available?  
J: Yeah. Why?  
B: I’m with the kid  
J: Alone?  
B: Yeah  
J: Where are you?  
B: Heading to Central Park  
B: Meet me there?  
J: Be there in five


	11. Escape & Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Yinsen finally finish the suit and begin their escape plan. After the escape Tony is rescued from the desert by noneother than his best friend Rhodey. And Tony may or may not tell him about Peter, that is before falling asleep on the way to his plane.

Tony and Yinsen were playing a board game to keep themselves entertained. “Still haven’t told me where you’re from.” Tony said.

“I’m from small town, called Gulmira. It’s actually a nice place.” Yinsen said.

Tony looked up to the man across from him. “You got a family?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” Yinsen replied, “and I will see them when I leave here. And you Stark?” Yinsen looked over to Tony.

Tony thought over what he should say. _Should I tell him about Peter? I haven’t said anything about him yet, maybe I should keep it that way. If I say anything about him, they might hear about him, threaten him. _The thought of these terrorists getting their grimy hands on his son, or even knowing about him made him sick. “So, you’re a man who has everything, and nothing.” Yinsen said.__

____

Tony sighed and huffed out “I have a son.” 

____

Yinsen looked at Tony confused. “What did you say?”

____

Tony leaned on the table, “You cannot repeat this to anyone, ever. But, I have a son. He’s six weeks old.”

____

Yinsen looked at Tony with sympathy, “What’s his name?” Yinsen asked.

____

“Peter.” Tony curtly replied, as footsteps could be heard approaching the room. Both men quickly quieted themselves and tinkering on parts of the suit as they heard a small window in the door slid open, then closed soon after. 

____

Both of the men were building parts to the suit. Both had a desire to get out of the cave and return to their respective families. While they were working, they could hear the cameras whining every so often. After a while, someone opened the little window in the door and was yelling something. Tony looked up at the man that was yelling at them and turned off the blow torch he was holding.

____

Once it was off, the man that was yelling at them pulled open the door, entering the room alongside multiple other terrorists, some with guns, it seemed like slowly the entire compound was pouring into the confined room. Tony put his hands up near his head while Yinsen placed his hands on his head. The seeming leader of the group looked at Tony and said, “Relax.” Slowly both men lowered their hands, looking at one another.

____

The leader walked towards Tony and started to tap the mini arc reactor, making Tony very uncomfortable and tense. “The bow and arrow, once was the pinnacle of weapons technology.” The leader let go of Tony’s shirt around the arc reactor.

____

The man now started walking toward Yinsen which didn’t help with Tony’s anxiousness. “That allowed the great Genghis Khan, to rule from the Pacific to the Ukraine. An empire, twice the size of Alexander the Great. And four times the size of the Roman empire.” The man started walking over to where Tony and Yinsen had left their plans for the suit, picking up the papers and glancing them over before continuing, “But today, whoever holds the latest Stark weapons, rules these lands.” 

____

The man put the papers back onto the table. He slowly turned to face the two men, villains always have that weird need to be dramatic and explain their plans to the people that can and will stop them, idiots, Tony thought as the man turned. “And soon, it will be my turn.” He walked in front of Tony, staring right into his eyes, a glare set on his face. He started talking in his language, requiring Yinsen to communicate for the both of them.

____

The man walked over to Yinsen, still talking in his other language. Soon multiple guys were grabbing Yinsen’s arms and forcing him onto his knees. The man grabbed something while he was turned, when he turned back towards the rest of the room he had a very hot coal in some tongs. Tony tried to ask what was going on but Yinsen was preoccupied with the man who seemed to be threatening him.

____

The two had a seemingly intense conversation with lots of yelling and repetition, Tony tried to step forward but everyone else in the room pointed their guns at him. He could feel everyone in the room looking at him, but he was only looking at Yinsen, “I need him. Good assistant.” Tony said, trying to save Yinsen from whatever they were going to do to him. 

____

The man threatening Yinsen dropped the coal onto the ledge Yinsen’s head was on. “You have ‘til tomorrow. To assemble my missile.” The man threatened, just before releasing Yinsen and pulling the rest of the men out of the room.

____

Once the terrorists were out of the room, the two men began to work as quickly yet efficiently as they possibly could, in order to finish their escape plan before their time ran out.

____

The two men resumed working on different parts of the suit, as Tony worked on the faceplate, Yinsen worked on some of the wiring. 

____

Slowly, piece by piece, the two men built the suit and soon the entire suit was ready. Yinsen was helping Tony get all of the pieces of the onto him and into an actual suit. While they were trying to finish assembling the suit, someone start yelling through the window in the door. Yinsen said they were speaking hungarian and that he didn’t know what they was saying, shocking right? 

____

The men at the door grew impatient and tried to open the door, causing the explosive they had rigged up to explode. They both were hoping the explosion would give them enough time to finish the suit before the second wave of the terrorists would come in. Tony had Yinsen finish the programming for the suit before he buttoned the rest of the suit.

____

The programming was only about halfway done. “I’m going to go buy you some time.” Yinsen said, hastily leaving the room, moving towards the newly blown out doors.

____

“Stick to the plan! Stick to the-.” Tony called as Yinsen hurried out, quieting himself as Yinsen left the room. As he had left, Yinsen had grabbed one of the guns off of the floor. He fired off multiple shots as he walked further into the terrorists camp.

____

After Yinsen had left, the programming finished and he finished the rest of the suit. Tony walked out of the room and found one of the terrorists with his back turned to him, as the man turned Tony hit him, causing the terrorist to start firing off bullets, leading to the other terrorists in the room to fire even more bullets at the unknown threat.

____

Once they had stopped firing bullets sporadically through the room, Tony managed to sneak-up on them and take out two of the three terrorists. The last one started firing at him for a short while, the bullets deflecting from the armor, Tony soon punched him unconscious.

____

Tony began walking through the rest of the compound, finding more terrorists, taking them out as the shot at him. Tony was focaused, he wanted to find Yinsen, he needed to get out of here and back to his son. At one point, a few of them hide behind a locked door, but Tony beat down the door and took care of them. One of the suit’s arms got stuck to the wall and one of those idiots tried to shoot him in his head, well helmet, but the bullet ricocheted off and hit him in the head.

____

After rounding a corner he found Yinsen, laying on the ground. “Yinsen!” Tony yelled.

____

“Watch out!” Yinsen called back, giving Tony enough time to move out of the way of a mini rocket thing, shot by the leader. Tony fired back with a mini missile of his own. After the leader was taken care of Tony hurried over to where Yinsen was laying, pulling scrap and debris away from him. “Stark.” Yinsen breathed, his breathing erratic.

____

Tony pulled the faceplate up, “Come on, we gotta go. Move for me, come on. We gotta plan we need to stick to it.” Tony tried, pleading with the man to get him to move to the nearby exit.

____

“This was always the plan Stark.” Yinsen stated.

____

Tony didn’t want to accept it. “Come on, you’re gonna go see your family again.” Tony reminded, trying to give the man a reason to keep going.

____

Yinsen already looked almost gone to Tony. “My family is dead, I’m going to see them now Stark.” Yinsen explained, “It’s okay, I want this. I want this.”

____

Tony smiled at the man, trying to comfort the man in his final moments. “Thank you, for saving me.” Tony sighed. 

____

“Don’t waste it, don’t waste your life.” Yinsen choked, he started breathing heavier, his eyes grew heavier as the life drained out of the man. After Tony was sure Yinsen had died, reuniting with his family, Tony walked out of the cave, where more of the terrorists were waiting for him.

____

Once Tony stopped, just outside the cave’s mouth all of the men that were waiting for him outside of the cave began shooting at him. He waited for them to stop, thinking he was dead, “My turn.” Tony growled, before igniting his flamethrowers. His flamethrowers killed several of the terrorists and destroyed their stockpile of his weapons. It may have caused a few explosions, but it was worth destroying those assholes. 

____

Soon the gunfire started again, beginning to damage the suit. Tony used the jet pack they’d put into the suit to escape getting himself hurt or worse killed. He couldn’t do that to Peter. And he couldn’t waste what was left of his life for Yinsen. 

____

Unfortunately the jet packs have out after a few minutes, causing Tony to begin to plummeting back towards the ground. At least he was falling far away from the remains of the cave.

____

Crashing into the sand wasn’t one of the worst things that has happened to Tony, but it definitely wasn’t one of the best things either. The suit seemed to dismantle itself in mere seconds upon crashing into the sand. At this point, the bright side was that he wasn’t dead. Tony took of the helmet and arms, the few pieces still on him. He felt as though he was going to die out on the desert, all alone. He tied his jacket over his head for protection, hoping he could find a way out of there and back home.

____

Tony was giving up when a helicopter flew nearby, he eagerly waved it down. As the helicopter descend, Tony fell to his knees in relief. Even more relief flooded through him when he saw Rhodey was with the group. “How was the funvee?” Rhodey teased. Tony smiled overcome with relief. “Next time you ride with me, okay?” Tony hugged Rhodey, falling into the embrace.

____

Tony was brought onto the helicopter as soon as they could get him to stand. “You’ve got some people worried about you back home.” Rhodey said.

____

“You should come meet my son.” Tony breathed, still extremely exhausted.

____

Rhodey was understandably confused, “Your son? When did you have a kid Tones?” Rhodey asked.

____

Tony looked up to Rhodey, who was sitting next to him, keeping him from falling over. “I adopted him, an old friend’s kid. He’s mine now, you should come see your godson.” Tony huffed. Sleep seemed to be calling him, and he was happy to answer.

____

Rhodey’s response was one of the last things he heard before drifting into sleep, “I’ll have to get some time of, make sure he ends up nothing like you though. Go ahead and sleep Tones, I’ll wake you when we get to your plane.”

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking sooo long to update, I started reading fanfics instead of writing them after I got back from vacation but I knew I needed to finish this chapter. Hope you guys enjoyed!


	12. Tony's Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's arrival in one of the military's bases comes with a suprise and a declartaion made by him at his press confrence shortly after shocked many people.

When Tony was woken up by Rhodey for the second time, he wasn’t on his plane, instead he was on one of the military’s planes that had landed on one of their bases. Pepper and Happy were both waiting for him, he didn’t see Peter, but he still didn’t know if it was the right time. Rhodey slowly walked Tony of the plane and towards Pepper and Happy. When Tony reached Pepper, he noticed that she was crying. “Your eyes are red. A few tears for your long lost boss?” Tony asked, trying not to start crying himself. God he’d missed her. 

Pepper’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, “Tears of joy. I hate job hunting.” Pepper refuted. Soon after, Tony, Pepper, and Happy were getting into the car. That was when he noticed the baby carrier in the back seat with a sleeping baby in it.

Tony looked at his son as Happy started the car to begin pulling out of the military base. “He’s missed you, he started crying more, sleeping less. That better be fixed real soon, or he’ll start having the same sleep schedule as you.” Pepper teased.

In Tony’s distraction to his adorable, sleeping son, Pepper had asked Happy to take them to a hospital, which he quickly refused, after a short argument with Pepper he told Pepper and Happy, “There are three things I want to do, I want an American cheeseburger, I’m going to spend a lot more time with Peter, and I want you to call for a press conference right now. Hogan drive. Cheeseburger first.” Happy began pulling out of the military base soon after.

Shortly after leaving the military base and they were back in civilization Tony got his cheeseburger and Peter woke up just as they were about halfway to Stark Industries Headquarters. Peter gurgled happily an started trying to reach for Tony, which he happily obliged, carefully pulling him out of the car seat and onto his chest. “There is one more thing you should know that happened while you were gone.” Pepper started, soon after being interrupted by Tony.

“What happened?” Tony quickly asked.

Pepper placed an assuring hand on Tony’s shoulder. “I don’t know how it happened but at some point Peter got bit by a spider and since then he has been extra fussy, as if everything’s was bothering him.” Pepper explained.

Tony tore his worried gaze from Peter to make a much more menacing glare for Pepper. “And you waited until now to tell me?”

Pepper in turn began giving her own glare at Tony as he returned his gaze to his son. “I’m telling you now so you don’t freak out later when you see the doctor’s report from your medical staff.” Pepper finished.

Peter reached over to Tony’s hand, one of the fingers that was resting around his back and gripped with his hand, slowly snuggling into his chest and beginning to fall back asleep. “Do you know when it happened?” Tony asked , still watching his once again, sleeping son.

Pepper watches the father-son duo fondly, “I felt the bump from the bite on his neck a little more than a week ago. I called your pediatrician first and he called a dermatologist, yes J.A.R.V.I.S. already checked her credentials before she ever entered the building and she was highly qualified. They both said it should go away in three to four days, which it did. They only other thing is that he had a fever for about two days but it was just slightly above normal. I had postponed moving him from New York to Malibu after we found the spider bite, I was unsure of what you might have wanted to do so I was just going to wait until either you got back or he got better but by the time he was getting better Rhodey had called me again and said they’d found you and you were on your way back.” Pepper explained.

As she finished explaining everything to Tony, they were pulling into the parking lot for Stark Industries Headquarters. There was lots of people, reporters, fans, and business associates waiting for them. “Take Peter.” Tony told Pepper, carefully lifting Peter off his chest and began putting him back into the carrier.

All Pepper could say was, “What?”

Tony started fixing his shirt and jacket ever so slightly for the upcoming cameras. “Take Peter with you, we’re not leaving him in the car and I can’t take him in. Just say he’s your nephew, which is kind of true, or something. I don’t know, I’m sure you can think of something.” Tony explained, planting a quick kiss to Peter’s forehead just before the car came to a stop and he had to get out of the car. He could faintly hear Pepper starting to say something, but it was smothered by the surrounding applause from many of the onlookers.

Soon after Tony got out of the car, he was hugged by Stane. “I thought I was going to meet you at the hospital.” Stane said.

Stane and Tony began walking into the building, followed by Happy and Pepper carrying Peter, the sun visor on the carrier pulled all the way open to hide as much of the flashes from the baby as possible.

Pepper watched from the side of the crowd as Tony walked straight through the same crowd toward the podium. As she watched, Peter’s carrier in one hand and her planner in the other, she was approached by a man in suit. “Ms. Potts, may I speak with you for just a moment?” The man asked.

“I’m not part of the press conference, but it’s about to begin, right now.” Pepper explained shortly, returning her attention to Tony who had reached the front of the conference hall.

“I’m not a reporter. I’m agent Phil Coulson, with Strategic Homeland Intervention and Logistics Division.” Phil explained, handing her a business card.

Pepper took the card from him and said, “That's quite a mouthful.”

Phil gave a short laugh, “I know, we’re working on it.” Phil replied.

“You know, we’ve already been approached by the DOD, the FBI, the CIA,” Pepper started.

“We’re a separate division. With a more specific focus. We need to debrief Mr. Stark about the circumstances of his escape.” Phil interjected.

“I’ll put something in the books, shall I?” Pepper offered.

“Thank you.” Phil said, walking away shortly after.

The crowd quickly silenced as Stane took the podium to begin the conference. “Hey, would it be alright if everyone would just sit down. Everyone sit down, that way you can see me, and I can see you. A little less formal then.” Everyone began to move onto the floor, including Stane, who moved closer to Tony’s spot on the floor.

Pepper carefully put Peter’s carrier onto the floor before taking a seat herself. Just as she did Rhodey walked over to her. “What’s up with the lovin’?” Rhodey asked.

Pepper looked over to Rhodey then back towards Tony, keeping a hand lightly on Peter’s stomach as he slept again. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know what he’s up to.” Pepper said.

Rhodey looked over to Peter, and quietly asked Pepper, “Is that him?” Rhodey asked, just as Pepper was going to ask him something in return Rhodey said, “Tony let it slip he had a, you know. What’s his name?”

Pepper smiled at the sleeping boy, “Peter.” She replied.

Tony began speaking about his father, his estranged relationship with his father, some of the questions he wished he’d asked him. “I saw young americans, killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them, and I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability.” Tony said, which launched several reporters to have questions for him.

He picked a random reporter from the crowd, to which he asked, “What happened over there?”

“I had my eyes opened,” Tony began standing up, “I came to realize that I have more to offer this world than just making thing that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Internationals, until such a time that I can decide the future of-” Tony declared before the ending of his speech was drowned out by every shocked reporter and Stane pulling him away from the mic.

Tony began walking away from the podium and back to Pepper, Peter, and Rhodey, Stane walked up to the podium. “What you should take away from this is that Tony’s back and he’s healthier than ever,-” Stane kept talking but Tony had already left the building and was heading back to his house in Malibu with Peter, Pepper, and Happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to change some things, like what year things occurred, like Iron Man 1 is occurring in like 2003 and Iron Man 2 will be more like 2008 or 2009. Let me know what you think. It's more so Peter will be the correct age, or closer to it in later chapters (For Homecoming and Civil War)


	13. Peter's Sick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets one of his first parenting experiences when his son is only 2 months olds, how to help your sick child.

Tony quickly realized what Pepper had meant when she said Peter had been more fussy lately. He was extremely needy, not that Tony minded of course, but sometimes wanting to get up at 4 a.m. was really getting on Tony’s nerves. Flying across country with a sick, whiny, needy infant on a 6 hour flight was one of the most strenuous things he had to do in a long time. That was before he learned what Stane had did. The two other things were bothering him, the miniature arc reactor had something wrong with which he’d need to fix and what Stane had said after he left was all over the news. The world knew he had Peter, name and all. And somehow they had a picture of him.

Pepper had called him as soon as the news had released the first story mentioning Peter, telling him how Stane had visited Pepper and Peter while he was gone. Peter may not be able to have a normalish childhood now. He’s sure Stane purposefully mentioned Peter, get everyone’s attention off of his announcement and onto his 2 month old kid. He’s always pulling shit like this when he can, get the press to focus on what he wants, what’s best for the company.

The beginning of Peter’s cries filtering through the baby monitor he’d setup with J.A.R.V.I.S. to alert him anytime if anything were bothering his son. Tony pulled himself from his oh so comfortable spot on the couch and walked back into his son’s nursery. He leaned over the crib and picked up his crying baby, lightly bouncing him in an effort to calm him down. “Hey kiddo, don’t worry daddy’s right here.” Tony soothed, slowing the bouncing of his son when his crying slowed into small sniffles.

He practically had this routine down, having already done this six or seven times a day for the past three days. “J.A.R.V.I.S. run a scan on Peter for anything irregular.” Tony instructed his AI, never taking his eyes from his son. He could feel something was wrong with his son but he didn’t know what, which frustrated him the most. Being unable to help his son.

It only took J.A.R.V.I.S. a minute to answer him back, “It appears young master Peter has a high fever of 101.3 and appears to be from a cold.” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. A cold? When did he get a cold? “Young master Peter’s records also state he has not had his vaccinations yet for his 2 month check up.” J.A.R.V.I.S. supplied. Great, Peter’s sick, he’s going to have to call his pediatrician again for another house visit.

His son began to start whining again so Tony grabbed one of Peter’s pacifiers, which he eagerly took and began suckling on. “J.A.R.V.I.S. look up soothing music for babies.” Tony instructed. 

As J.A.R.V.I.S. did its quick research, Tony slowly rocked Peter. “Multiple sources say classical music or lullabies are the most efficient and common soothing for babies. Although from past experience, Peter seems to react best to russian lullabies.” J.A.R.V.I.S. said. 

Russian lullabies? Where the hell did that come from? And why didn’t Pepper mention it? “Alright then, J, play some russian lullabies for Peter until he falls asleep.” Tony instructed. He could see that Peter’s eyes were drooping. After a little more than 5 minutes, Peter had fallen asleep and the lullabies slowly faded into silence, ensuring Peter did wake up from the sudden noise difference.

After carefully putting his baby boy into his crib Tony called his pediatrician for a house visit in 2 hours, he then texted Pepper about the lullabies.

T: Hey Pep  
P: Hi Tony, what can I do for you?  
T: Quick question, what’s with the lullabies?  
P: What do you mean?  
T: J just said Peter responded well to russian lullabies. What caused that?  
P: I don’t know what you’re talking about  
P: I’ll ask Brock about it   
T: Who’s Brock?  
T: Pep what does he have to do with Peter?  
P: Brock is a guy from S.H.I.E.L.D. that I hired to help me with Peter when you were missing  
T: You let a stranger near Peter?  
T: Is that why Peter’s sick? Because of this Brock?  
P: Calm down Tony, I was in the same room as them. I needed someone to help with Peter while I did work for your company   
P: Brock just texted me saying that the lullabies were something his mom did for him as a kid and thought it might help. And seems like it did  
T: We will talk later Pepper  
P: Alright Tony

Tony slipped his phone back into his pocket and sat himself on one of his couches, picking up one of the parenting books that Rhodey had sent him as a joke but Tony had decided he could read them just to have a reference other than his overreliance on J.A.R.V.I.S. and right now, knowing how to comfort his son while he was sick would be something he will be immensely grateful now and other times when he might not have J.A.R.V.I.S. on hand with his database of information.

He got about an hour and a half before Peter woke up and had started crying again. Tony closed the book and dropped it onto his couch as he moved back into his son’s room, he pulled his son out of his crib and slowly rocketed Peter, trying to soothe him. Tony plucked one of the pacifiers from a bin on Peter’s changing table, lightly pushing it by Peter’s lips he pulled it into his mouth and began sucking on it as Tony carried him into the kitchen.

Tony had Dum-E with the help of J.A.R.V.I.S. make Peter a bottle of his formula as he slowly woke up more and more as it got closer to 6 a.m. and his pediatricians visit. He’d ended up getting on from Queens, but she was well reviewed and highly certified. He’d met with her once for a few moments before Pepper took her to hand the legal and confidentiality papers while Peter was under her care, considering she was dealing with the Tony Stark’s son. Dum-E brought Tony the bottle, which he tested first, you could never truly trust Dum-E, and Tony tried to give it to Peter but he didn’t seem to want it. “Come on kid, work with me here. I know your sick but you need this.” Tony pleaded, before realizing who he was actually talking to, “I really wish you could talk kid, or at least understand me. That’d make it a lot easier for me.”

After a few more tries of getting Peter to drink the bottle Tony gave up as J.A.R.V.I.S. told him that “Dr. Maya Goldberg is approaching the front door sir.” Tony put the bottle onto a nearby table and gave Peter back his pacifier. Which he eagerly accepted, maybe he’s going to start teething soon or something, Tony thought which was odd since most babies don’t start teething until their 4 to 6 months old. At least according to his parenting books.

Tony stood up from the couch, carefully not to jostle Peter from his comfortable spot on Tony’s shoulder as he walked towards the front door just as Maya was knocking on it. “Thank you for coming on such short notice Dr. Goldberg.” Tony said, his camera smile flashing. When she’d smiled in return he knew she fell for it like everyone else did.

Tony gestured for Dr. Maya to enter and the three walked back into the living room and onto the couch. “There are a few questions for you. Alright, does Peter have a fever?” Dr. Maya asked.

“Yes. It was 101.3 earlier.” Tony replied.

Dr. Maya made a quick nod and marked something on a small paper before asking another, “Has he had a stuffy or runny nose in the past couple of days?”

Now Tony felt like a bad parent. Did Peter have a stuffy nose? Or a runny nose? It didn’t sound like it. Or maybe he was used to it since he’d been crying so much, but wasn’t that what babies did? Cried? “I don’t know.”

Dr. Maya looked up at him from her paper and gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry Mr. Stark many first time parents will miss a symptom or two from time to time. Or Peter might not have a runny or stuffy nose. Just do your best to remember, has he had a cough?” Dr. Maya asked him.

Did he have a cough? He was coughing a lot on the plane ride two days ago. He also was coughing in his sleep last night, well early this morning. “Um, yeah. For at least two days.” Tony said.

Dr. Maya nodded again and looked from her paper to Tony. “It sounds to me that he has a common cold. Has he gotten his shots yet? I don’t have anything on record but you may be able to ask the hospital he was born at if he’s gotten anything there. As for the cold you can give him some infants Tylenol for fevers. I recommend running a humidifier while he sleeps. If he gets a stuffy or runny nose you can elevate his head under the mattress of his crib. And if he starts rejecting formula you can try some Pedialyte or water.” Dr. Maya said. Tony carefully handed over his sick baby do Dr. Maya could physically check Peter for anything else but after she found nothing else Tony payed her and she was heading back to her office before it was even 6:30.

Tony looked at his son while he addressed J.A.R.V.I.S. “J, order a humidifier, infants Tylenol, and some of that Pedialyte shit. Peter, don’t repeat that.” Tony said. Peter was wide awake at this point, Tony had J.A.R.V.I.S. start a coffee pot since he could tell he might not be getting much sleep in the next couple days. 

Within an hour Peter’s medicine, dehumidifier, and drink thing was being delivered to the front door and was retrieved by Dum-E. Peter’s humidifier was made to look like R2-D2, in support of Tony’s love of robots and so the giant humidifier that would be a bit loud might not freak Peter out too much if it looked like a robot.

Tony set it up in Peter’s room before moving back into the kitchen and poured some of the mixed fruit Pedialyte into one of Peter’s bottles. Tony got all 5 flavors that were recommended for infants, one of which was unflavored. As it turned out bubble gum was Peter’s favorite flavor, and with the drinks, the medicine, and the humidifier, Peter got a lot better and was soon completely healthy. It turned out that Peter had gotten his shots at the hospital with his birth parents. So no need to worry about that.


	14. The Arc Reactor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obadiah and Tony won't agree on the future of the company, no matter how much they bicker.

Tony knew he needed a plan. After he’d said in that damn press conference about stopping the weapons program, he needed something to replace it or they would have to go back to the weapons and that was not something he wanted for his company, himself, or for Peter. And if it would get Obie off his ass, that’d be great too.

He was taking a quick break from being cooped up in his house with Peter from the past week, making sure his baby boy was going to get sick again, leaving only because Pepper had almost forced him to go do something else. So that’s why he’s here, looking at the arc reactor built by his father. It was peaceful, until Obadiah showed up.

The opening and closing off the doors gave away his entrance, pulling Tony’s attention for a brief moment, before his gaze returned to the arc reactor. “Well uh, that went well.” Obadiah said, a cigar hanging in his mouth.

Right, he’s probably still upset about the conference. “Did I just paint a target on the back of my head?” Tony asked. My kid’s head? No one would hurt a baby though, right? At least no one with a heart would.

Obie walked over to him, stopping just behind his left shoulder as he said, “Your head? What about my head? What do you think the over under on the stock drop has been going for the past week?” Obadiah asked.

This wasn’t going to be fun. “Optimistically.” Tony replied, not really wanting the answer.

“Forty points, a minimum. Tony, we’re a weapons manufacturer.” Obadiah tried. Who really cares about the company’s stock anyway? His son was his priority now.

But that wasn’t what Tony wanted to be anymore. “Obie, I just don’t want a body count to be our only legacy. That’s it.” Tony argued, while Obadiah refuted that they needed to keep making weapons since that’s who they are and what they do. Tony didn’t want to do that anymore though. He didn’t want that to be his legacy, and he certainly didn’t want it to be Peter’s legacy.

Tony had to stand there and let this man lie about what was really happening with his weapons. “Not based on what I saw. We’re not doing a good enough job. We can do better, we can do something else.” Tony said.

Obadiah was visibly beginning to get frustrated with Tony so that meant this would go one of two ways, he’d get his way now and they’ll move on from the weapons business or it’ll take about two days of nagging before Obadiah agrees to his idea. “Oh, like what? You want us to make baby bottles?” Obadiah mocked, although that might not be a bad idea, considering he wanted Peter to only have the best and he could easily take over the baby-industry.

Instead of voicing his thoughts, which would not help his case right now, refraining from mentioning Peter around Obadiah. “I think we should take another look into arc reactor technology.” Tony suggested. Clean energy is a much better area than weaponry, especially if he wants Peter take over the company one day. That is if that’s what he wants to do, Tony wouldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to.

Obadiah, unsurprisingly, was entirely against it. Saying the arc reactor was just a publicity stunt. “It works.” Was all Tony had to say before Obadiah would go off on a tangent about why it was built, before calling arc reactor technology a ‘dead end’, which Tony didn’t agree with at all. Then again, they didn’t seem to agree on a whole lot anymore.

The best part, was when Obadiah said they hadn’t made a breakthrough with the technology in 30 years. “That’s interesting. Could you have a lousier poker face? Just tell me, who told you?” Tony asked. After years of working with, and against, this man, Tony knew exactly which buttons to push to set him off, usually resulting in him getting what he wanted.

Of course, Obadiah wouldn’t want to reveal anything more, at least intentionally, to Tony. “Nevermind who told me.” Obadiah said, disregarding his options of Rhodey or Pepper telling him. “Show me. I wanna see it.” If Obadiah wanted to see it, Tony would show it to him. Tony began unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the mini arc reactor in his chest, the one thing keeping him alive right now. 

After Obadiah looked at it for a few moments he stepped forward and began buttoning Tony’s shirt up, once again hiding the mini arc reactor. “It works.” Tony said again. Maybe Obadiah would figure out what he was saying. Instead Obadiah called them a team, like how Obadiah and his father were, and how they were supposed to stick together. Completely missing his point, again. “Sorry I didn’t give you a heads-up. But if I had-” Tony started, before being interrupted by Obadiah.

Obadiah wrapped an arm around Tony’s shoulder, cigar in hand, “Tony, no more of this ready, fire, end business. You understand?” After Tony begrudgingly agreed Obadiah continued, “You got to let me handle this. We’re going to have to play a whole different kind of ball now. We’re going to have to take a lot of heat. I want you to promise me, you’re going to lay low for a bit. Try not to draw any attention to yourself. We wouldn’t want you or peter to be in any danger.” Obadiah said as they left the building together. He hoped onto his segway and rode off before Tony could get another word in. Well, guess he’ll work on it without Obadiah’s approval, not that he ever waited for it anyway.


	15. Changing Arc Reactors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Tony gets a moment to make some 'minor' repairs to the arc reactor in his chest untill he runs into a small, or rather not small enough, problem.

Watching the stocks so early in the day was probably poor planning on his part. But what else was he supposed to do? Tony was told to lay low for a while, so going anywhere was out. Yes he still needed to improve the arc reactor in his chest and improve his suit, but he couldn’t do that while Peter was awake and Peter was being extra-clingy this week. And the idiot, Jim Cramer, was telling his investors to sell their stocks in his company. All because he didn’t want to be the reason billions of people were being killed. In Pepper’s defense, she had told him to avoid most talk shows and stock or business related shit for a while but he was going to do what he wanted anyway. He’d also noticed that whenever he’d make some noise at the tv, Peter would try to make the same noise too. It was way too adorable.

After about 20 more minutes of listening to Cramer shit all over his company, Peter had fallen asleep, too tired of his bullshit too, giving Tony the perfect opportunity to fix his arc reactor. It wouldn’t take too long right? Just enlist Pepper’s help if needed and be done way before Peter would wake up from his nap. But just in case he took the baby monitor with him. Sometimes he needed the physical reminder of his kid.

Alright, long story short, he couldn’t do it by himself. Trying to remove his current arc reactor was too hard to do alone. “J, call Pepper.” Tony ordered his A.I. Soon enough he was connected to Pepper, which by the sounds of it, she was watching the same imbecile Peter and him had earlier. “Pepper, how big are your hands?” Tony asked. Okay, now that he said it aloud, he knew how weird that sounded but he needed her help. Like always.

After some confused mumbling on her side, again unsurprisingly, she started, “I don’t understand why-” Yeah, no one would without any context. Besides the point. 

He kept it real short and sweet, he needed this done about 10 minutes ago. “Get down here. I need you.” With that he hung up and about 5 minutes later he could hear her heels clicking down the hallway towards his lab. He waited as she cautiously entered the password for her to enter the lab. “Hey.” She didn’t answer him, only looking at him in a mixture of confusion and worry. 

Time to get the weird part over with. “Alright let’s see’em. Show me your hands.” Pepper raised her hands enough for him to see them good enough as she slowly and cautiously walked towards him, her hands were hopefully small enough for this. “Oh wow, they are small. Very petite. I uh, just need your help for a sec.” Tony said, looking at the new arc in his hand.

Pepper walked next to him quickly, “Oh my God, is that the thing keeping you alive?” Pepper asked, looking at the arc reactor still in his chest, then the one in his hand.

He wasn’t as impressed by it as she was but then again, he is Tony Stark. “It was. It is now an antique. This is what will be keeping me alive for the perceivable future. I’m swapping it out for an upgraded unit, and I just ran into a little speed bump.” Tony said, looking back and forth between Pepper and the new arc reactor in his hand.

Expectedly, Pepper was a little confused. “Speed bump, what does that mean?” She questioned.

Tony remained calm, trying to be disinterested in the conversation, “It’s nothing. It’s just a little snag. There’s an exposed wire under this device. And it’s contacting the socket wall and causing a little bit of a short. It’s fine.” As Tony said this he pulled the current arc out of his chest, leaving the outlined holes and some wires.

He handed the arc over to Pepper, who started freaking out. “What do you want me to do?” Pepper asked, she was trying to touch the now old arc reactor as little as possible.

Tony didn’t look over when he said, “Put that on the table over there. That is irrelevant.” After waiting for Pepper to put the old arc on the table and turn back to him he started giving her instructions, “I just want you to reach in, and you’re just gonna gently lift the wire out.” Tony laid back in the chair, bracing for the oncoming pain.

Before Pepper started doing anything with the arc reactor she asked, “Is it safe?”, looking worriedly at Tony. God he hated when she looked at him like that, in disbelief, worry, disappointment. She was one of the few people he hated disappointing.

Moving past that he said, “Yeah, it should be fine. It’s like Operation. You just don’t let it touch the socket wall or it goes ‘beep’.” Tony explained, hoping it was enough for her to understand.

Instead of understanding what he was saying, Pepper instead asked, “What do you mean, ‘Operation’?” Apparently it wasn’t enough of an explanation.

Slowly, Pepper raised her hand over his arc reactor spot, hesitant to touch anything else without his instructions. “It’s just a game, never mind. Just gently lift the wire. Okay? Great. Okay.” Tony breathed, still preparing for any of the pain that would come when she started to remove the wires from within his chest.

Just as Pepper was about to start touching some of the wires in his chest she stopped and took a small step back. “You know, I don’t think that I’m qualified to do this.” Pepper said, looking to Tony in disbelief.

Tony looked over at Pepper, saying “No you’re fine. You’re the most capable, qualified, trustworthy person I’ve ever met. You’re gonna do great.” Tony reassured. After a brief and somewhat awkward pause, Tony tried to give Pepper a pleading look in his own way. “Is it too much of a problem to ask? ‘Cause I’m-” Tony started, being cut off by Pepper, begrudgingly agreeing to help him. “- I really need your help here. Okay.” Tony finished.

After Tony finished talking, Pepper slowly raised her hand over the hole in his chest. She slowly reached her hand into his chest and began feeling around for the wire she needed to pull. “Oh, there’s pus!” Pepper squealed.

First of all, that was just wrong. “It’s not pus. It’s an inorganic discharge from the device, not from my body.” Tony explained. Yeah, that probably didn’t help her at all, but it was truthful.

“It smells!” Pepper squealed, again.

Of course he knew it smelled, he had to live with it. “Yeah, it does.” Tony deadpanned. After giving Pepper another moment before she began her search for the wire again, time for some more directions. A.K.A. the fun part. “The copper wire. The copper wire, you got it?” Tony asked.

Tony could somewhat feel that Pepper was grasping onto some of the wires, “Okay, I got it! I got it!” Pepper said, starting to pull the wire out slowly.

As Pepper was pulling the wire out Tony remembered some vital information he’d yet to tell her. “Okay, you got it? Now don’t let it touch the si-” Tony started, before being zapped by the loose wire touching the metal in his chest. Once the searing pain of being electrocuted passed Tony finished, “-ides when you’re coming out.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Pepper apologized between his words.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you before.” Tony said, Pepper started pulling the wire up and out of his chest. “Okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, you don’t -” 

Only to be stopped after Pepper pulled the magnet at the end out of his chest too. Great. “There’s a magnet at the end of it! That was it. You just pulled it out.” Tony said, as heart monitors behind him started beeping crazily.

Pepper started freaking out and was about to put the magnet back into his chest, which would NOT be a good thing. After telling Pepper how to finish switching the arc reactors, Pepper told him never to ask her to do something like that again, Tony and Pepper quickly cleaned up the lab a little from what they were using when Pepper asked him what she should do with the old arc reactor. “Destroy it. Incinerate it.” Tony said, grabbing his shirt, his shirt, and the baby monitor, heading toward the door.

Pepper’s question reached his ears as he approached the door, “Don’t you want to keep it?” No, why would he want to keep it? He’s got Peter, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, a new arc reactor, and Obie, sometimes, he’s got all he needs.

Tony turned back around and walked over to Pepper, who was still standing in the middle of the room. “I’ve been called lots of things, nostalgic, is not one of them. That’ll be all Pep.” Tony said, waving her off as she started walking out of the room. The door opening, closing, and locking was his sign that Pepper had actually left. “Butterfingers, clean up this mess. Throw it all away, garbage.” Tony said, soon after Butterfingers had started cleaning up the mess on his desk, and catching one of the few pictures he had of him and his father from Butterfingers throwing it away, he left his lab to go check on his kid.


	16. Peter Stark Is Absolutely Adorable (duh)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony spends some quality one on one time with his son before any more problems decide to pay the Stark men a visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick Author Note: Thank you guys so much for all the support of this story and my other works while I was taking my break. At first, I was getting both bored and frustrated writing just about anything and then I got really busy with my softball and the end of the school year. Updates will more than likely continue to be irregular due to college visits/college prep stuff I have to do this summer but I wanted to get a new chapter out to you guys after making you wait for so long. Also, tbh Umbrella Academy has like taken over all my life for the past few weeks and after reading a lot of fics from that fandom I was more eager to get back into my own writing. Once again thank you guys so much for all your support and encouragement for this story. 
> 
> Sorry for this being so short.

Reaching his son’s room, fresh from his replacement procedure, Tony poked his head into the room catching the literal last ten seconds of Peter’s nap as he began to cry, wanting someone to comfort him. Hearing the beginning of his son’s cries, Tony quickly moved to Peter’s crib and lifted him out and onto his shoulder, almost as soon as Peter’s head touched his father’s chest his crying quieting back down in an instant. Sneaking a quick glance at the clock on Peter’s dresser, reading that it was ten past noon, before the Stark men exited the nursery and headed towards the living room.

Upon reaching the living room, Peter, much less drowsy given that he’d had more time to wake up from his nap, began to look around at his new environment. For a while Tony was trying to look at whatever Peter was fascinated by at the moment but he quickly grew tired of looking at the same lamp and a spot on the ceiling that Peter seemed to be convinced that something was up there. “As much fun as looking at the ceiling is Petey-Pie, how about we watch something much more entertaining before we go meet with Uncle Rhodey. Sound like a plan?” Tony asked Peter, who in turn gave him one of those weird baby stares. Switching his questioning to his AI system rather than his adorable son for a brief moment, “Glad we agree then. J? Put something cartoon on that won’t bore Petey and I to death would ya?” In a matter of seconds J.A.R.V.I.S. pulled up some rerun of the Simpsons, ‘cause what else would be playing in the middle of the day?

Only after about five minutes into kind of watching the TV but mostly watching his son out of the corner of his eye, Peter’s little baby hand wiggled its way out of his blanket. Peter seemed to be having the most fun of his entire life, using his little fingers to hit Tony in various places on his face, mostly his nose. Whenever Tony would turn his head towards his son, even the slightest bit, Peter would pull his hand back from his dad’s face and suck on his fingers, giving his dad the best innocent baby look he could.

In totally fair retaliation Tony began lightly tickling Peter’s stomach, causing him to gurgle with laughter more often than not with his fingers still firmly in his mouth. When Peter decided to try and stop his dear old dad, who’s really not that old, from tickling him, Peter wrapped his tiny little fist around one of Tony’s fingers. Peter’s little fist gave Tony enough of a reason, an absolutely adorable reason, to stop tickling his son and to compare, most of all the absolutely adorable size difference between the two month old baby and the thirty one year old man’s hand sizes, but it also gave Tony the jarring realization he needed to finally understand how much his little boy is and is going to depend on him for everything for the next two decades of their lives.

In need of a distraction before things got too emotional around here Tony asked, “J, what time is it?”

“It is approximately 12:27 p.m., and if I may remind you that Colonial Rhodes is expecting your arrival at 12:45 p.m. Sir.” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. 

“Thanks J.” Tony said, slowly getting off the couch. Great, right on schedule. “Alright Petey, ready to go see your Uncle Rhodey?” Tony asked, receiving another gurgle from his son. “I’m gonna take that as a yes, alright Petey.”

Tony reached Peter’s room, found and secured him into his carrier and grabbed the diaper bag Pepper had left for him, already filled with everything, the two Stark men walking out to Tony’s car and began their journey to the military base.


End file.
